Blender. How to cut and key a model for 3d printing
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 พ.ค. 2024
- The previous video on this subject used the bool tool addon and although it is a slightly easier method, booltool does not work reliably for this in Blender 2.93 and above. It does work but a lot depends on your geometry and what type of cut you want to do. This method does not use booltool and therefore slightly more complicated but not worryingly so.
Previous version is here • How to cut up and key ...
0:00 Annoying but short intro
0:06 Plane cuts
6:52 Organic cuts - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
This was exactly what I needed. Very clear and easy to follow. Keep up the good work! Thank you.
Glad to hear that! Thanks for the feedback
Thank you for this, Ive been looking for days at all the Blender tutorials trying to figure it out only to find older instances of the program that no longer function as shown, this updated video showed me exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!
Thanks for the feedback. It is always nice to hear if a video has been helpful!
Thank you so much! I have been on You Tube searching for hours on how to do this and I came across this video which showed exactly what I needed. Thanks
Very pleased to hear it was useful. Thanks for letting me know.
Thank you for sharing this very useful method.
Thank you for the feedback. Glad you liked it.
Thank you for doing this...Not having to spend days trying how somebody did a specific function on screen is SO helpful.
really glad to hear it was helpful and thank you for the feedback.
Many thanks for this video! Slicing objects with a solidified plane is easy and so is keying with a cube, but I couldn't think by myself of a more practical way of doing things (I'm new to Blender). Your tutorial helped a lot. By the way, I noticed that when you toggle face-snap before moving the "cube-gone-vertex" object, you actually don't need to add the shrinkwrap modifier to it.
Very glad the video was useful for you. With regard to the shrinkwrap modifier I think you are right but when I was learning Blender and trying to do retopology everyone recommended having both and I never really thought about it after that :)
Great video and very clear instructions! solved my problem
Good to hear! Thanks
Thank you. I am a cery beginner in blender and your video is one of the greatest of blender tutorials I came across. Just the essentials and in easy way, you say what you do
Thank you. I hope to make these tutorials easy to follow but sometimes miss out bits. I am glad this was useful for you and thank you for the feedback.
I wish I'd seen this video this morning instead of now at 1 am when i'm supposed to be sleeping. Cutting my model this way would have saved me so much time!
Definitely faving this video for future reference though. Just now learning blender for some projects im really excited about and this video made one the things i was most intimidated by so easy seeming. Thank you!
Really glad that this was helpful for you but sorry to hear you have had such a late night :)
Awesome, thanks. I was trying to figure out how to take a solid model and basically add a lid by cutting the top off. Works perfect
Really glad it helped and thanks for the feedback.
Thank you, this was very helpful. Clearly explained and no nonsense around.
Thanks for the feedback. Glad this was helpful.
Exactly my same thoughts! PLUS @notverygoodguy : I appreciate the subtle humour! Keep doing this man, you rock!
@@svetlio3d Thankyou :) I have been a bit lazy of late but will get back to them soon.
@@svetlio3d i think the humor is very obtuse
Amazing!
This is so helpful!
Thank you for this approach!
So glad it was helpful for you! Thanks for the feedback.
This is exactly what I needed. Thank you very much!
Thanks for the feedback. I have very pleased this was helpful for you.
This video is so helpful! Thank you!!
So glad it was useful and thank you for taking the time to comment.
thank you for sharing!! , very useful tutorial for me. I never use single vert with guide on face . hope that I will success on my coming model build.
Thanks and good lick with your new build. Let me know if you have any issues!
That opening sentence is gold.
It's a bit specific isn't it :)
I really enjoyed watching this. Thanks.
Thank you so much for your feedback. I have new videos lined up but I am a bit slow :)
Holy crap! This looks brilliant gonna try this now!
Let me know how you get on :)
Good tutorial, solves the issue. Thanks!
Appreciate the feedback. Thanks.
You sir are a hero! Thank you. I have liked and subscribed!
Thank you. I am glad this was helpful. I have more videos planned but am sadly, just a bit slow :)
Thank you. It was quick and easy
Thanks for the feedback.
fantastic guide. ty
Thank you. I am very glad it was helpful.
thank you! this was very helpful!
Thank you for the feedback! I am very pleased it was helpful!
Thanks. Much better that the previous version :)
Glad you like it!
Took a few attempts, but I've nailed it. Much appreciated.
Fantastic! Glad it helped and thanks for the feedback.
@@notverygoodguyFar quicker and neater than deleting Vertices. I'm just learning Blender. Is there any way to save a singular stl, without it also saving other bits that you have open?
@@ATOMTAYLOR Yes, just select the objects you need and then when you export to STL check the "Selection Only" check box (which may be hiding under the "Include" option) on the top right of the export options.
@@notverygoodguy Ta ;)
Thank you :) Thank You :) Thank you!!!! Happy New year :)))
And a happy new year to you too!
thank you! was really helpful!
I am very pleased to hear that. Thank you for the feedback.
thank you
I can safely say - how happy I am - congrats this worked a treat - another happy viewer..
Glad to hear it :) The thing I don't like is you do lose 0.001 units of your model but I think I can live with that.
@@notverygoodguy to be honest the glue will fill that
Very good thanks 🎉
Thank you. I am glad it was helpful.
Thank you very much!!!!
Glad it was helpful.
Thanks!
So sorry it took me so long to see this. I usually reply to all messages within a day but I wasn't messaged about this one. Thank you very much for your kind donation. It is very much appreciated.
amazing, boosted my already high opinion of British people and if you're not British I'm sorry but i respect you so much, tysm
Very glad this was useful for you. Yes, I am British.
@@notverygoodguy tysm
Thank you !!
Glad you liked it!
thanks mate
Thank you :)
thank you sir.
And thank you for the feedback.
Good video thanks. I think the first part can be done by the addon carver.
Thanks. Carver is a really, really nice add on but unless you use it a lot I think it's probably easier to just use a boolean. It is for me at least.
Thank you :)
I am very glad it is helpful.
Great Tutorial. Why do you use the non-zero-thickness solidified plane to cut the model instead of the Bisect tool?
Because the bisect tool can only handle a straight line. This technique allows any shape cutting tool and also allows you to adjust it until its just right. Bisect tool is fine for quick rough cuts though.
Thx!
No problem. Hope it was useful!
Thanks so much for the straightforward tutorial. I tried, and it works great. But how will that cube key print sticking out at 90 degrees? Do i enable supports?
Thank you for the kind words. I kind of had resin printing in mind actually and then you would most likely have supports on anyway but if you are using an FDM printer I would suggest you make sure the gab between the hole and the "key" is bigger than I show in this video. I would think 0.2mm as a minimum otherwise the parts might not fit together.
For supports, if you use the cube key as it is and it's walls are not at a 45 degree angle to the printer bed then yes you might need support. However, it doesn't have to be a cube :) If you selected the vertices of one face and scaled them down, you could make a kind of wedge shape for both the hole and the key and if the angle is right you may not need supports.
Hope this helps!
Thanks!
perfect.
Good to hear! Thanks for the feedback
You are a god among men.
Ahh, if only that were true :)
Your videos are excellent. However, I am creating a dust extraction box for my bandsaw and have inserted a tube into it at an angle. What I am struggling with is how to delete the part of the tube mesh that is inside the box exactly where it comes through the inside surface of the box.
It would be easier to see pictures somehow as there are a million ways you might have got to the point you are at. However, something that could work where ever you are at is to create a solid cylinder just slightly bigger than your hose inner wall and do a boolean difference between it and the hose. It should remove stuff but to be honest maybe there was a way you could have got where you are without having the problem you are left with.
I would be interested to see what you have if possible. There is a Blender for 3d printing facebook group linked at the top of this channel and you can post pictures in there if you like but anywhere will do if you wish.
I also create dust extractors for various wood working tools :)
So when I apply the boolean modifier, the stl object disappears and only a little block of the original is left. Any idea why this is happening?
This is most likely to be due to not applying the scale. Sometimes it isn't necessary but sometimes it will do what you experience. Try applying the scale to both the model and your cutting plane. The other, less likely issue is that you have a non manifold model or the normal are wrong. The first can be checked by enabling the 3dprint add on and getting it to check, the second by turning on face orientation. Alternatively, you could provide a link to your model and I'll take a look at it :)
I have two parts that are already in seprate parts but need to be assymbled into one once printed so the slicing method doesn't work for me. do you have any advice for my situation? I don't expect a reply since this is a 2 year old video
You maybe surprised :) Ignore the slicing part of the video but just do the part cutting and keying part with the cube. Alternatively if you use Prusaslicer as your slicer it can now add connectors to parts to allow you to snap them together. I haven't actually tried that yet though.
I'm trying to cut a vehicle in haft from bonnet to boot. I'll add the modifier solidify; I lose the red face on the plane, but I continue any way.... I'll add Boolean to the vehicle click the eyedrop on the plane and chunks for the vehicle will delete.... I made sure to set origin to geometry as well as rotation to scale for both. Is it because of multiple meshes within that vehicle? for that reason or......
Without having seen your model most cars I have seen are not made for 3d printing and have multiple objects, inverted normals, no manifold parts and a whole host of things that booleans might not work with. There will likely be a fair bit of work fixing up if this is the case.
You MIGHT try using the 3dprint plugin on the individual objects as it has a make manifold option but I am not especially confident in this.
I hope you are able to get this sorted!
THank you my horse is now split then together again :)
Great to hear :) Thanks for the comment.
For the drumstick cutter, what was the purpose of the shrinkwrap modifier? You snapped all extruded vertices to a face, then extruded them a little away from the dog after you'd closed the loop. Seems to me that is all you needed, no shrinkwrap required.
You make a reasonable point and your mostly right. Try it though, it usually works out better with both.
how much should be a "good" offset from the male cube vs the female cube? u increased something like 0.1, isn't a bit small?
Depends on your printer really though it probably is a bit too small. Especially as scaling by 1mm only gives 0.5m clearance all around. It might work for resin printing but yes, I guess 2 or maybe 2.5 would be better.
For some reason when I add the cube it's hollow inside so it doesn't create the hole for the key during difference, just cubes outlines :(
All cubes are hollow inside, actually everything is really so I wonder if perhaps your issue is something else. Would be interesting to see a picture of the result you are getting. Is it possible that the difference has worked but you still have the "cutting" cube showing in your viewport? If so, just selecting it and turning off the visibility in the list of objects would work. You could also try just moving out of the way to check if you liked. Otherwise perhaps you can give a few more details of your issue.
I can't get the extrude and scale step to work. You seem to be able to extrude 'inwards' for the inner ring. no matter what tool i use, it seems to only want to extrude along one plane. I also had to use 'extrude along normals' to even get the first 'ring' to extrude.
This is odd. After the e for extrude you are supposed to do the s for scale. Are you doing that?
@@notverygoodguy I press e to extrude, then move the cursor around which extrudes all the vertices in a single direction. I've tried hitting s but it doesn't seem to do anything as long as extrude is active?
@@p4cca Don't move the mouse until after the s. Press e and then press s and then move the mouse. Should work :)
@@notverygoodguy I'm so glad you already answered this in the comments! Trying this tutorial and that's where I got lost! Thank you!
First time in blender, the instructing person does an good job but me not knowing the shortcuts he is using on his keyboard failed me bad.
Keys are shown bottom left above the little white mouse icon. I admit it should be bigger and in more recent videos it is!
This is the second method I tried and it just doesn't work for me, as soon as the cut is a bit too curved it fails in one way or another. I discovered a more tedious but much more reliable way: in edit mode deselect all vertices(Alt-a), then activate the knife tool (k) and define the cut around the mesh, double click to close the cut loop, press enter to execute the cut. This doesn't actually separate the mesh but creates a loop of vertices along the cut line you defined and they'll be selected. Now the tedious part: select all vertices on one side of the cut. Afterwards press p > by selected, and you'll have two separate meshes along the cut. They'll be open though, you can close them by selecting the vertices on the seams again, then pressing f and then in the menu bar selecting Face > Triangulate Faces.
Your method will be really difficult with high resolution models, especially stl ones but if it is working for you that's great.
I am interested in the issues you are having using this method though. Can you give more details on the kind of failures you are getting?
Follow your Instructions 8:40 (Extruding shape around object) When I click around my sculpt there's no indication I'm making a path and that anything is happening.. The Black Lines and Dots are Not showing at all on the sculpt. Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanks!
I presume you have created the single vertex as the starting point and you can see that in the list of objects in the outliner (the window in the top right that has all your object names in it and you are in Edit mode when you are doing the extruding? The single vertex (made from a cube) must be created in Object mode and the single vertex extruded in Edit mode. I hope that helps. Let me know.
By the way, love your work!
@@notverygoodguy I've realised I wasn't Pressing "E" for every movement.
Thanks very much for your kind words and speedy reply!
Thanks, no nonsense guide!
It's always nice to hear if a video was useful. Thanks
it worked for me at first but now the boolean difference doesnt work anymore. It creates the verticies and connects them but doesnt delete the area in between them.
I'm not entirely sure I understand. However, remember to turn on "face orientation" to make sure you have no flipped normals. Check the normals on your model AND the cutting tool you are using for the boolean. Next thing to check is that you have applied rotation and scale on your model and your cutting tool too. Last thing that occurs to me. Make sure your cutting tool is big enough to extend beyond all the edges of your model. If you still have problems, let me know.,
good boy
Actually he was a very bad boy! grrrr
When I try to do the difference part it just cuts a hole in the other half and it appears hollow. Any idea what might cause that?
If anyone finds this and is having the same issue. I went to Edit Mode -> Mesh -> Normals -> Recalculate outside and that seemed to work for me
@@jon5716 You didn't even give me the chance to reply before you solved it yourself :) Indeed, normals being wrong is the source for many a Blender problem. That is why I always have Face Orientation set to on in the Overlays dropdown but change the blue to transparent in preferences. Glad you solved it :)
@@notverygoodguy Okay so I am having the same issue but this time recalculating normals isn't fixing it. I have an object imbedded in another both have their normals correct but if I do a union it leaves a hole. If I switch to difference it leaves a indent. Using self intersect also doesn't seem to be working. I am stumped. To clarify I am trying to join these two objects now. Having the same issue with the hole but the end goal is for them to be one
@@jon5716 Try switching from exact to fast in the boolean modifier. That can often fix issues like this. When I finally get around to it, my next video will be about boolean problems and this is one thing I will talk about.
@@notverygoodguy Good to know thank you. It turns out this one was because there was non manifold geometry. I downloaded the 3d Print addon and the fix that provides has been really helpful getting booleans to work properly
If I have a hollow object, is there an easy way for me to put an end cap on each side of the cut after I've cut through that hollow section? (I'm sure there's an easy way to do it, but as a blender novice, I'm a bit lost now!)
Interesting question and this could be messy depending on your model. I will need to see if there is a better way for for my test object at least this works. Basically you create a thick plane that sits of the top of the hole and use your hollowed model as a cutting tool to cut into the place. You then remove the bits of the plane you don't need. I will do a video on this I think.
Only 1 month late, but I think you're trying to use the fill tool. Select the vertices on the outside of the hollow area and click the letter F for fill.
@@TheCNCNoob This can certainly work but you can easily end up with a large face that isn't flat. This can make it difficult to add keys and other booleans. In many cases it is a good option though.
Do a bisect instead and use the fill option.
@@Superkuh2 I never had much luck making bi-sect work for me. Maybe I should look at it again. Can it work for a non-plane cut?
ive tried this so many times and however i do when selecting linked it selects the whole darn model... the cut is there but somehow it fails
oh! now i noticed that one arm of the model actually touched the other half......😑
@@eddiexx That can happen :) Well done for spotting this yourself!
8:30 here I am suddenly lost. When I turn on Snapping there is no 'Face' option, instead there is 'Face Project' and 'Face Nearest'. My best guess was 'Face Project'. I turned on the Magnet, went down to the point of focus.
But what are you doing? It sounds like you're clicking the mouse while you move the pointer around. But all I see on the screen is the letter E. Whether I click the mouse, or the letter E, no lines are drawn anywhere :/
Also the pointer never changes to 4 arrows. What am I doing wrong?
So disappointing to get this far. I'm going to have to bail. No key I hit does anything. I guess Blender updated and changed how this works? Who knows
Sorry it took so long to see this message. I usually get to them quickly. Actually, face nearest is probably best but it depends on the size of your faces and vertex can be better.
this method is very sharp? I need I need a method to put my man in a horse, the horse and the man are separated. I need to glue them all together but I need a very sharp union , the pose is very complicated so I can not do a flat union , it is a little curved.
I am not sure I understand your question. If you have a posed model of a man and you want it to sit on a horse, you'd normally just put it on the horse. You wouldn't need a boolean at all. However, if you are hoping that your man deforms around the shape of the horse, booleans are not that smart sadly. You would need to model or sculpt the man to fit properly on the horse yourself.
Of course I may have misunderstood your issue,
I follow every step and it all goes fine with the organic cut UNTIL I try to apply the Boolean modifier to the Model. It causes a small piece on the outside edge to disappear but all the extrusions made are now part of the Model.
Basically, applying the boolean modifier makes the cutting disc we made become part of the model itself.
Any idea what i did wrong? Im on blender 4.0.1
To be honest I haven't tried Blender 4.x mostly because charmorph doesn't work with it yet but my first suggestion would be to try "fast" in the boolean operator instead of "Exact". That often fixes things. If not then check normals by turning on face orientation in the viewport overlays drop down. If this doesn't make a difference then it looks like I am going to have to download 4.0.1 even though charmorph doesn't work with it so I'd be grateful if you could let me know how you get on.
Thanks for the fast reply. Gunna try these as soon as i get home. Thank youuu
@@notverygoodguyOKAY so im home and so far i tried the one using the Plane and it worked after I used Fast Though.
Edit: yep ive tried from start to finish a few times and the organic cut doesnt work. The only thing ive notice is when Solidify is set on a plane. I notice its thickness increasing. On the organic it still looks flat. Im gunna play with thickness and see what i get.
Important edit. So in my case making the thickness .003 worked. Im not sure why thats the case but i was able to get them apart
@@Linkophere Thanks for the updates. I'll download 4.0.1 soon and see if there any weird new things I should know but I am glad you got this working :)
@@notverygoodguyno problem. Thank you very much for your fast replies and help. Youve saved me from literal days of editing meshes to make a key hole. This is only my 3rd day of using blender and this video was amazing.
Boolean was working fine, suddenly the pop up “modifier is disabled, skipping apply” came up and I can no longer use Boolean, how can I fix this?
Have you set a target for the boolean? This error usually means that the modifier doesn't have enough information to work or has options that can't work.
Yes after selecting the correct target I was able to cut it. Thanks so much for the help and awesome tutorial!
@@disposable40mm Glad to hear its working now!
there's no reason you wouldn't be able to use this method to split model into more than 2 parts right? When I try to make the second cut, the plane like glitches out and is not able to be hidden, and leaves the new edge hollow
I'm totally new to blender so I don't know how else to describe this issue :(
dude idk but exporting the stl and then reloading fixed it
I am guessing that the most likely reason for your issue was either that you missed the step of applying scale and rotation or you had some normals that were facing the wrong way. Bad normals are the root of so many evils in Blender :) I see you have resolved the issue by exporting and re-importing but if you want to know how to check for bad normals then you could check this short video th-cam.com/video/RRZh390yo_M/w-d-xo.html
I can't do the organic cut
version blender 3.6
Just tried this myself on Blender 3.6.0 and it worked OK. What problem are you seeing?
How would you attampt to cut toroidal propeller in 3 parts? I tried and failed because off a lot factors, you name them :P I have only a small 3D printer 120x120 mm. Looking forward for some advice.
Well that's a interesting project especially given you have to stick the pieces together well once printed. You don't want that flying apart in mid air.
It depends how big you want this thing to be but you might consider using a cylinder with the top and bottom faces removed as your cutting "plane" and use it to cut out the center leaving that and the arc of the blades as separate object. Creating keys in something that thin may be a challenge though. It would be interesting to see what you come up with.
@@notverygoodguy I did approach it a bit diff than you, tried to cut it in 3 parts 120deg in vertical plane, but I failed due to not being good with the soatware.
@@geopolska Did you look at the later parts of the video about making organic cuts? It MIGHT be helpful. The basic idea is the same with you propeller as the dog :) You should be OK.
@@notverygoodguy Need to study software for a bit longer then, haha
@@geopolska I believe in you :)
This isn’t quite working and I don’t understand what’s going wrong - when I split the model it seems to be hollow and I can’t understand why or how to fill it to make the key
Could it be that your starting model is actually hollow? If so you could try this method to cut and key a hollow model th-cam.com/video/EDx-Lr3QdjE/w-d-xo.html If this isn't the problem, first try the method on a simple object like the monkey that comes as a mesh with blender or see if you can find a way to provide a link to your model and I'll have a look.
First off, thank you for this clear tutorial! Secondly while i got the technique to work last night, when i tried to use it again today when i get to the end and pressed L in edit mode the entire model turns orange. I tried following the steps 3 times and i can't get it to work again.
Two things that come to mind though I am not overly confident of either of them. Firstly are you sure your cutting plane cuts entirely through the model in all direction? Secondly, you could try a thicker cutting plane, I would be tempted to try it with a stupidly thick one and then turn it off in the viewport to see what the resulting boolean difference looks like. If it doesn't cut it, there is something odd with the models. You might also try the "Fast" option instead of "Exact" when you do the boolean as that sometimes helps. Other than that, make sure your normals are correct in both the model and your cutting tool (check "Face orientation" in the viewport overlays drop down menu). There should be no red faces. The try applying rotation and scale to both objects and as a last resort make sure that the origin is set to geometry (though it often works without this). Let me know if this helps. If not, I'd be interested to look at your blend file somehow.
I want to thank you for replying to a comment on a video you did a year ago! I thought it was a longshot that you would reply so you've definitely gained a sub from me. And i switched the boolean to fast and it worked!
@@kaininquattrocchi339 Thanks for the kind words and the sub. I am a bit slow doing videos at the moment but will get into it again soon :) Glad to hear your cutting is now working :)
@@notverygoodguy im having the same problem so tried changing the setting to fast but it still didn't work
@@Fakob225 Are you sure you have applied scale and rotation to both the model and the "cutting" plane before using using the boolean?
when i go into edit mode the slices are no longer there
Did you remember to apply the boolean first?
this method doesn't work if the model has bones or i don't understand what to do already.
This method is for cutting up finished models to be ready for printing, It won't cut bones in half but then why would you want to. If you have a model that has rigs and textures and possibly shape keys, export it as an stl first and then use that stl to cut up.
Modifier cannot be applied to a mesh with shape keys
Your model has shape keys and blender won't let you apply a boolean modifier if a model has shape keys. You CAN delete all your shape keys first but it might not work out as you would like. As long as you don't save until you are happy that will be fine. You may find delete all shapekeys works or start at the top of the shape key list and delete one at a time might be better. You may need to make a new shape key from mix and to start with. If you are not sure about shapekeys, let me know and I'll explain how to proceed,
How do you save each half as a separate stl?
Select the half you want to export and then export to stl but check the "Selection only" box on the export folder selection window.
@@notverygoodguy Thanks, That sounds easier than deleting one whole side, saving the current side, crtz and deleting the other side lol. Much appreciated! Is there any sort of way to use a pen tablet to draw an organic line around the shape we want to cut out, that you know of?
@@Lexesbenz Blender supports tablets of course and so the easiest way MIGHT be to have a control on the pen set to right mouse click. Then, create a single vertex, and then in edit mode use the pen, CTRL, and the right click button to extrude that vertex to where you want it. You COULD draw a grease pencil line, decimate it and convert it to a mesh or do something similar with a curve but in the end I don't think these are likely worth the effort :)
@@notverygoodguy Ok So I used your method of using vertices to cut a large sword out of a hand on an STL I have. The only problem is when I extrude and scale the vertices they cut into other parts of the model, is there any way to stop that from happening?
@@Lexesbenz Not really, you would just have to be super precise with making your cutting object and move vertices around so it cuts only where you want it to. That includes inside the model too. It will help to turn X-Ray mode on to do this. It is certainly possible to do but it will need some patience.
my right ear likes your voice more then left
Still battling to get my audio right :(
@@notverygoodguy its okay.. btw very helpful video keep making and helping ❣️
how to save file
Presumably you mean as an STL. If so, select the parts you want to save and go File->export-stl and make sure you tick the box to include selection only.
What if my model has a more complex pose than this basic dog? What then?
This procedure will work with any pose. Not sure if you got as far into the video as when I show just removing a leg from this dog but basically you just need to create a cutting shape around the part you want to cut and then do the solidify and booleans as described. You can create your cutting shape simply by extruding vertexes around the part you want to cut and then filling in the shape.
At around time point 9:00, my previous video (with bad sound) shows another idea for cutting a part off a more complex model. th-cam.com/video/D5-AJpzSDrs/w-d-xo.html
You don't need to use a plane. Use the bisect tool to divide the model into sections. To close each section, select the outer ring and F to create a face, then control-T to triangulate the face.
This works but only for a straight cut on a not too dense model. You can't use the bisect tool to cut around an object such as we do cutting off the leg here. In a dense model, selecting the outside loop to create a face can also be a bit challenging. It does work in many cases though so is certainly an option.
I seem to be the odd man out - I'm looking for details on how to *reverse* this; as in, take a model that was previously made into keyed pieces (by using Blender) and reassemble it as a solid piece for printing.
Can anyone point me to a guide that does this (preferably within Blender)?
How about you just place the pieces together in Blender do a boolean union on each part so they all end up as one model with the keying still inside. Your slicer would probably ignore what is inside but if it doesn't , go into edit mode, select all of the outside probably with "C" selecting tool and then SHIFT D to duplicate what you have selected. Then "p"->by selected. You should have a new object that is a copy of the old one (as well as the old one) that would be completely solid. I haven't actually tried this of course but it should work. I suspect the slicer will ignore what is inside though so check that first.
Excellent suggestion, Thank You!
What I had done so far was to simply import all of the keyed files (they're not hollowed) at once into Blender, and it assembled everything for me automatically (a very nice touch). I suspect that this is because the original keying process was done in Blender, so there might be some lingering metadata associated with the files. I then went to Object Mode / Object / Join and then exported the result as an STL. I haven't printed it yet though, because I was concerned that some of the keyed areas might still have open areas around them (leaving uncured/trapped resin). That's why i was looking for a confirmed method of putting the model back to a fully assembled/solid state. But so far, I've not seen a video walkthrough of anyone performing either of these methods; it's always the opposite. 😄
@@MalsBrownCoat Actually I do have a video about making hollow objects solid again but not ones that are keyed. You might find you may have to do the booleans I suggested because the join command doesn't connect parts together, it only makes them look like they are and makes one object out of the parts. However, it is likely that gap between the parts are so thin that the slicer might handle it anyway.
I would be interested to hear how you got on. I have never heard of anyone needing this before but I'll add it to my list of videos to consider doing.
Agreed that the slicer (Lychee) may just take care of things and it may not be an issue after all. I'm supporting the test file and printing as we speak. Will certainly advise on the result. For future use cases though, I'll likely go the route that you mentioned, just to be safe. The extra steps couldn't hurt. And for the record, how I found you was from that hollowed-to-solid video. Thank you for that, as well!
@@MalsBrownCoat Good luck :)
1:53
Is there something I should know?
Only works half the time for me, unfortunately
Are you able to give more details about your issues with this. It should work all the time. Perhaps you can provide a blend file of one that isn't working I can look at?
jeez you should see what it is doing to my model lol not what it's meant to lol fml
:) Check you have applied scale and rotation for all the objects involved in the boolean. That's usually the issue.
4,444 viewer
Congratulations!
my poor left ear
Yeah I know. Apologies.
@@notverygoodguy No need. Thanks for the video!